The Ukraine crisis is hideously dangerous: Vladimir Putin has too much at stake. This is the land he likes to call “Little Russia”, the cradle of Russian civilisation and its Orthodox religion. Russia’s huge military port at Savastopol (which has just appointed a pro-Kremlin Russian citizen as mayor) gives his Black Sea fleet winter access to the warm waters of the Mediterranean. Ukraine’s pipeline network is critical to Moscow, carrying roughly half of Russia’s gas exports to Europe. Large numbers of its people speak Russian and think of themselves, at heart, as Russians. Without Ukraine, Putin’s vision of a Eurasian […]